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Ryan Hardwick Wins Mid-Ohio 120 Pole

The quick form that Wright Motorsports showed in practice continued Friday afternoon (May 14) in qualifying.  Ryan Hardwick won the pole for Saturday’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Mid-Ohio 120 with a lap at 93.412 mph.  It is not a track record for the series as Nate Stacy‘s pole lap from last September was one-tenth of a second quicker.

During the session, Archangel Motorsports’ Alan Brynjolfsson seemed to have the fastest car at first.  He put himself at the top of the chart less than five minutes into the session, relinquished the top spot to Chris Green of Andrew Wojteczko Autosport (AWA), then regained the advantage.  Hardwick, whose teammate Jan Heylen was fastest in the two practice sessions earlier in the day, regained the advantage with three minutes to go and held onto until the checkered flag.

See also
Jan Heylen Quickest in Mid-Ohio Michelin Pilot Challenge Practice

Hardwick won the pole by three-sevenths of a second over Green, who is making his first start in the series since 2019.  Brynjolfsson will start third, then TeamTGM’s Hugh Plumb and HTP Winward Motorsport’s Russell Ward.

McCann Racing’s Michael McCann Jr. will start sixth, then Motorsports In Action’s Sheena Monk.  Turner Motorsport’s Dillon Machavern will start fifth, while Murillo Racing’s Jeff Mosing was ninth.  FASTMD Racing’s Alexandre Papadopulos rounds out the top 10.

In TCR, the session ended up being a back-and-forth affair between the Honda of Atlanta Speedwerks’ Brian Henderson and JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Chris Miller.  With about a minute to go, Henderson set a lap at 91.527 mph that held up for the class pole.

Henderson’s lap, which was good enough for 12th overall was the same amount of time quicker than Miller as compared to Hardwick over Green, to the thousandth of a second.  LA Honda World Racing’s Mike LaMarra will start third in class, then Bryan Herta Autosport’s Parker ChaseRory van der Steur will start fifth in class in his family-owned Hyundai Veloster N TCR.

IMSA MICHELIN PILOT CHALLENGE MID-OHIO 120 QUALIFYING RESULTS

The Mid-Ohio 120 is scheduled to go green at 3:35 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon.  The race will be streamed live on NBC Sports’ TrackPass at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.  The race will air on NBCSN via tape delay on May 25 at 4 p.m.

Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.

Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.